In lubricating oil pumps of an internal combustion engine of a motor vehicle the delivery volume is customarily designed for the most unfavorable case of hot idling. This design takes the fact into account that given high oil temperature and a correspondingly low oil viscosity as well as a low speed of the internal combustion engine the lubricating oil supply must nevertheless be ensured. This has the result that in all other operating states the lubricating oil pump delivers too large an amount of supplied lubricating oil, that is, it is “designed too large”. Vane cell pumps with an adjustable delivery amount offer the possibility of carrying out a variable regulation of the volume current. Conventional vane cell pumps can be combined with a multistage pressure regulation so that a lubricating oil supply device is present whose oil pressure can be adjusted and that can be roughly adapted to different operating states.
The invention has the problem of creating a robust and economical device for supplying an internal combustion engine with lubricating oil that allows a good adaptation to the different operating states of the internal combustion engine.